How relevant is EU citizenship in times of crisis? Reflections on citizenship, free movement and Covid-19

This contribution discusses the impact and possible future implications of the Covid-19 crisis on EU citizenship as a fundamental status. The discussion focuses on two aspects of EU citizenship: the right to enjoy free movement as the transnational dimension of EU citizenship and the right to diplomatic protection (repatriation) as the supranational dimension of EU citizenship. The right to free movement is generally understood to be the best known and valued right associated with EU citizenship. Traveling freely, smoothly and unburdened by excessive formalities and the adjoining right to reside in another EU state for work, leisure or study are the hallmarks of the mobility regime applicable to EU citizens and their family members which sets them apart from nationals of third countries. Due to the measures taken by several EU states to deal with the effects of Covid-19, EU free movement has been severely disrupted as a result of the reestablishment of internal border controls, the introduction of restrictions to travel and even travel bans by some EU states. The (initial) lack of an EU response and the proliferation of national measures affecting free movement can be interpreted as the reassertion of national citizenship and the limited reach of EU citizenship. Likewise, the Commission’s guidelines on dealing with Covid-19 and its insistence on the need to ensure mobility for essential workers as part of ensuring the survival of the internal market point towards the assertion of a primarily economic reading of mobility that has always been critiqued as showing the limited scope of EU citizenship. The paper contrasts this rather distressing perspective on EU citizenship that questions its fundamental nature with policy measures aimed at facilitating and coordinating the repatriation of EU citizens stranded in or out of the EU due to the closure of internal borders and restrictions to international travel. Repatriation is a right associated with nationality, although the EU has been developing this aspect of EU citizenship through the adoption of legislative measures designed to protect EU citizens while abroad. Empirically, the paper examines these contradictory yet complementary responses to EU citizens’ mobility during the crisis in relation to one Member State, Romania and the measures taken there throughout the months of March, April and May 2020 that sought to restrict the mobility of Romanian citizens into and from Romania while simultaneously opening up airbridges so that Romanians could go work in agriculture in other EU states as ‘essential’ workers. Building on the Romanian example the paper examines whether the economic dimension of EU citizenship trumps all other dimensions and if so with what consequences.